Writing as a Technology

As a Language, Literature and Writing major, I am constantly writing. To be completely honest, the only technology I rely on to do this is my computer. This is not only because it is the most convenient, but because it is 100 percent required by all professors and any professional organization. Any- and everything must be typed in a 12-point font, mostly likely double-spaced. I loved the selection from Barron's essay in which he claims that professors at first didn't want to tell their students about spell-check, and now get pissed when they don't run the software before turning in a paper. It is so true!
A difficult thing for me to completely wrap my head around is that writing itself is a technology, as Ong states. I understand, as Plato claims, that writing itself is a representation of the real creation, but itself being a technology in its own existence is a difficult concept. I guess the best way for me to justify this idea is what Ong says when comparing oral communities to "advanced" communities: writing itself is a representation, just as thought is a representation. We cannot begin the following syllable or sound of a word without first performing the latter, which is already passed and/or forgotten. (As I re-read what I just wrote, it may not make complete sense to you, but for some reason makes me understand this a little better...)
All of the essays present good evidence for their points. Ong gives a very strong argument as to why writing is a "diabolical" representation of the original creation of an author/speaker/artist. Plato presents luring food-for-thought about the concept of writing and its possible affects on civilization. Manguel's discussion on the old golden rule of "judging a book by it's cover" provides good evidence that doing so is sometimes a good thing as it alters our perception(s) of a particular text. Any way we look at the concept of "writing", we most certainly have to consider the technology behind it. Creation is just as important as result. Isn't this why all our lives we have been forced to create rough drafts? Teachers always want to see our thought processes, even though sometimes we don't have one, we just are able to spill out all we need to say.
I never thought about the "technology" of writing before this class, and was truly confused by it until reading these selections. I now understand (at least I think I do!) what this means, why it is important, and the process by which we are where we are today. Writing is so important that it will always adapt to the technology invented, and I can't wait to see what someone comes up with in twenty years.